I pressed the starting motor, threw in the clutch and tore out of the alley just as there came the sound of a whining siren and a police machine ground to a stop around the corner, at the door of the Mandarin Café.
And I saw something else in that brief glimpse I had of the street. A “dead wagon” was parked at the curb, one of those black, box-like affairs in which corpses are transported. On the driver’s seat, attired in sombre black, sat the vulture, the human buzzard, his head bent over, his nose twitching, his long neck twisting in his collar.
Only a flashing glimpse did I have and then I had skidded the corner and was tearing through the narrow streets, gripping the wheel, pressing the foot throttle to the floor boards.
Some time later I swung the car into a darkened street and slammed on the brakes.
I slipped from the car, sprinted to the curb, dashed through the revolving door of a hotel, walked rapidly across the lobby, took an elevator to the second floor, walked down the corridor, sprinted down the steps, went to the side entrance of the hotel and stepped into a taxicab.
“University Club,” I snapped at the driver.
I went there, entered the club, came out and into another cab, and went to the Coliseum Theatre. That was only four blocks from where Paul Boardman lived, and I didn’t want to be traced too near the house.
For once I was doing but little planning. Action was my cue that night. On other occasions I had had the time to think out some careful plan of campaign, to match plot with counter-plot, and always had I kept my back trail so covered that it would be difficult to pin a definite infraction of the law upon me. Now it was different. I was working against time and for the safety of the woman I loved.
Such are the methods by which the police grind down the criminal. One dare not have a companionship with a woman, a love for one of the opposite sex. Such things are tabulated at “headquarters” and whenever the police want a man they look for the woman for whom he has shown a fondness. If they can find him through her well and good. If they cannot, they proceed to hound her day and night, making life miserable for her. Wherever they have the opportunity, they haul her on the carpet, until, in desperation, the man for whom they are looking tries to protect the girl he loves — and walks into a carefully spread police net.
One who would be at war with society must renounce all normal companionship, must have no friendship, must learn to be self-sustaining. And I, for years a lone wolf and proud of the fact, had at last walked into the most common police trap of them all, the one which never fails, the inherent desire of a man to protect the woman he loves.
There were lights in the front of the Boardman house, but the back was dark. I presumed that Bob Garret had already arrived. I felt certain that he was to be one of the witnesses who would trap Helen Chadwick when she went to the safe for the papers, and I never doubted for a minute but that she would go to that safe.
What her feelings for me were I had no means of knowing. This much I did know. Any affection she might have for me could be nothing but a source of pain. Therefore, if I were to act the part of a gentleman, I must conceal my feelings for her, never by word or act cause her friendship to ripen into anything else. The present situation was but a sample of what she might expect if she should show a fondness for me.
For the moment I had the wild idea of storming the front of the house, of demanding to see Helen Chadwick, and warning her, but a second thought convinced me of the futility of such a course. Beyond question Bob Garret would have hastened to the house and prepared for just that. Knowing that I had escaped from the death trap set for me in the Chinese café, knowing that I possessed the knowledge of what was to happen in that house, he could figure out my next move with no uncertainty. He knew what I would try to do as well as though I had told him my plans.
So much had the love of a good woman and this cursed police system done for me. I had ceased to be able to master events, and must, in turn, be mastered by events, not of my own making. I had become merely a pawn. The police had set the trap, had baited it with the one bait I could not resist, and, no matter that I had fought my way to freedom through the smelly darkness of Chinatown, I must throw away that freedom, rush madly to the one place where the police would be expecting me.
And yet I had one ace up my sleeve. I had my years of experience. I was no novice at the game. I had been in tight places before. I had learned the logic of doing the unexpected.
Had I called at the front door I would have been swiftly and quietly overpowered, arrested, started for the jail, and killed en route while “attempting to escape.” Had I sought to get Helen Chadwick on the telephone, I would have been kept waiting while the police traced the call and arrested me.
As it was, I violated the law, broke and entered, and I did it without compunction. There was an ingenious burglar alarm, but I had learned my trade thoroughly, and it did not detain me long. One of the back windows slid noiselessly upward, and I dropped into the yawning blackness within.
A phonograph was blaring forth a dance piece from the front of the house. There was the occasional shrill of woman’s laughter. Now and then there came a deep guffaw from a man. Evidently there were several guests, guests who could be called as “witnesses” if the occasion demanded. And I felt certain that things had been arranged so that Helen would be making her attempt almost immediately, might be sneaking up the stairs and into Boardman’s study even now. Knowing me as they did, the plotters could not help but fear me. Now that I had escaped from Chinatown, they would take elaborate plans to keep me from reaching Helen with a warning, but the best plan of all would be to have her walk into the trap without delay.
There were back stairs in the house, but here I was doomed to disappointment. Such servants as were on duty were gathered in the little hallway at the foot of those stairs. The front stairs would doubtless be near the front door, and they would be guarded.
I had no time to lay plans, no time to do much of any thinking. It was merely a case of doing the unexpected wherever possible and doing it rapidly.
A serving tray loaded with glasses of gin stood on a little table in the pantry and I picked this up, ditched my hat, and started boldly to the front part of the house, toward the noise of revelry. The tray was balanced on my hand, held so that it concealed my face as much as was possible. It was a desperate chance, but one I must take. They might arrest me, might recognize me as soon as I entered the rooms where the guests were gathered, but they would never be able to subdue me until I had raised such a commotion that Helen would be warned. After that, it would be prison of course, for I had broken and entered another man’s house...
I kicked open a swinging door. Couples were dancing over a floor from which rugs had been removed. The lights were low during the dance, and the swaying couples seemed engrossed in each other. The casual sight of a man carrying a tray of glasses did not arouse sufficient interest to cause either male or female to give a second glance at the supposed servant.
Fortune was favoring me. She had favored me in the matter of the lights, and she was favoring me as to the stairs. The front stairs forked at a landing, and one flight came down into the very room where the dancing was taking place.
Twisting and turning through the twining couples, I slowly made my way to the stairs and up, carrying the glasses upon the tray. There was no one to question, no one to comment.
On the landing I set down the tray and dashed upward into the darkened upper story. It would suit their purpose to have it dark here. The trap for Helen Chadwick required darkness. There would be concealed witnesses, a camera set up, with a flashlight all ready. When Helen approached the safe she would touch a string which would click the shutter and release a flash just as wild deer are made to photograph themselves when they approach a salt lick at night.